That isn’t to say that all writers wrote of Xanthippe as a shrew. Plato portrays her as a devoted wife and mother within the early pages of the Phaedo. Still, the overwhelming consensus is that she was an argumentative, troublesome wife who was the source of many headaches for the philosopher. To be fair though, Socrates was most likely a difficult person to live with. He certainly was a difficult person to have a conversation with. I imagine a conversation would go like this…

Hey Socrates, nice day we have.

Is it? Perhaps since you are so knowledgeable and wise of all these things that are good, you would be able to tell me in satisfactory terms what it means to be “nice.”

Oh Zeus, help me. You keep this up and they will execute you one day.

Despite his tendency to turn any type of menial chit chat into a long philosophical discourse, there were a few other reasons why Socrates might have been a rather awful husband.

And I will say this as something of a disclaimer: When recounting Socrates’ life, we run into what is known as the Socratic problem. Basically, we can never be sure if the character of Socrates (Socrates within the pages of philosophical dialogues) bears any resemblance to the man himself.

We will have to take something of a leap of faith here. As one of our colleagues put it, “It may not be the best history, but it is history of a sort.”